Tag Archives: Tim Tebow

Once upon a time, before I lost my moral compass in a land far, far, away, I swore on a bible, under oath, that I’d never take my kids to Vegas (O.K. it wasn’t really that dramatic but I like the visual, especially because in my version of the story I have newly shellacked nails, a flowing iridescent robe with ruching in all the right places, a super-sweet spray tan, and Legolas standing by as my cabana boy witness).

Son of Thranduil and King of the Woodland Realm of Northern Mirkwood or cabana boy? You be the judge. Image via freewebs.com

Anyway, I was certain, based on past experience, that Vegas simply wasn’t a place fit for English Royalty, my grandmother Tim Tebow fans, or children. But the winds of change kicked up a ginormous tumbleweed as airfare hit a price point better known as dirt cheap and my children embarked on Fall Break, which, without some type of vacation, would end up being unbearable uneventful. So I pulled a complete about-face.

I’m a Gemini. Don’t judge me.

Blimey! Image via guardian.co.uk

Everyone knows Las Vegas is the capital of glitzy-glam-glut the United States of America, and I’m all about sipping cocktails by the pool providing a well-rounded education for my offspring. Intent on showing them why they should go to college the positive side of the world’s largest, most collagen-enhanced melting pot (behind L.A.), we recently loaded up our sunscreen, sensible shoes sequins, and hand sanitizer, and hit the road.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually have to visit Europe to experience European bathing. Instead, you can be from like, Alabama, frolicking through the family friendly lazy river ten tequila shots down with your surgically enhanced assets bobbing in the fake surf screaming “Roll Tide Roll!” as my son, completely entranced, who’s also unfamiliar with the metric system, gets a crash course in Girls Gone Wild 101 anatomy and physiology.

Image via shopncaasports.com

Etiquette

As a parent, I’ve used technology as a babysitter more than I’ll ever admit diligently taught my children the value of proper etiquette. So when a fellow tourist (possibly European but thankfully not nude), boxes your children out with her fanny pack and blocks their view of the Bellagio fountains because she’s using her nifty new iPad as a camera? Get all up in her face, step away from the safety rail and let her memorialize her future Barcalounger programming options trip in peace.

Most parents don’t know this, but it’s not the casinos, international tour buses, or third row of a minivan taxi cab wave pools you need to steer clear of when you’re in Vegas with children. It’s actually the M&Ms store. That place will make you throw up in your mouth rob you blind as you quickly check your phone for the over/under on the Monday night game, sprint across the street to the Luxor to place a fairly sort of smallish bet, and return in time to discover that each of your kids has figured out how to personally monogram a container of candy that you can buy at Walmart for $1.97 each.

This is $80.00 worth of personalized M&Ms. O.K, actually $78.92: two of my kids ripped off the lids and started shotgunning them before I could pry them from their talon-like grasp. Image via Stacie “that was the most expensive bet ever” Chadwick.

Your penchant for five-finger discounts fight or flight instinct will immediately kick in as you weigh the odds of being caught stuffing three pounds of candy down your shirt. Since the store is wired with a security camera every two feet you’re a good, moral person, you instead spend the night’s blackjack money on candy that you’ll regift as Christmas presents to elderly relatives who haven’t yet had cataract surgery let your kids have, in limited amounts so that it will last the rest of their lives (which are now considerably shorter), when you get home.

So take it from me, a trip with the family to Las Vegas is something I’ll never do again much more than just a vacation. It’s an international experience of love, hope and harmony filled with opportunities to blow their 529 savings sky-high teach them about world culture, etiquette, ethics, and that those things being handed out on the sidewalk looking a lot like baseball trading cards? Not so much.

Images have been blurred to protect the innocent and the addicted. Image via mobypicture.com

P.S. “Thunder From Down Under” is not a show about variable weather patterns in the New South Wales/Victoria region of Australia.

Image via ethanjstone.com

P.S.S. We watched the second presidential debate with the kids while we were in Vegas, because it’s illegal to leave them alone in the hotel room to hit the craps table I believe in a well-rounded political education. In case you’re wondering, I can assure you that the term “binders full of women” has a completely different meaning in Las Vegas than in American politics. I think.

Having just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Labialand, where the scale sits five pounds too high and peeing in a cup is a full contact sport, I’ve come to an obvious conclusion.

Visiting your OB/GYN for any reason other than having a baby seriously blows.

Even though my childbearing days are long gone, I force myself up on the pleather-covered table once a year because experts swear that a smiling vagina makes the world a better place. Since we could all use a little more peace, love and understanding, following are some ideas that the Board of Obstetrics and Gynaecology might want to consider discussing with its clamp-carrying members to make the ride a little less rough.

Image via laserlabs.com.

If Happy Wife = Happy Life, then Healthy Lips = Less Hormonal Dips. You can quote me on that, but not in public or in front of my dad. He gets super-embarrassed when you shout VAGINA! during thought-provoking dinner conversation with the new neighbors and prefers to use the word bohunky instead.

Anyway, if you happen to be my OB, here are seven ways to increase your chances of getting me on my back (sorry Simon, it’s another hook, but if you’re still here, you’ve earned major props for reading this far since you’re a dude).

1. Replace this:

Yep, that’s me. Image via Stacie Chadwick.

With this:

Beam me up! This couple laughed all the way through menopause. Image via Stacie Chadwick.

2. Don’t pull the surprise “Time to prick your finger and check those iron levels!” gig right after shoving a three-foot long Q-tip halfway up my small intestines through a hole I didn’t want to explore in the first place. You’re a doctor after all, and should already know that my sweet summer tan and glow-in-the-dark teeth are proof positive of my excellent health.

This is how I feel about getting my finger pricked. Image via Stacie Chadwick.

3. Replace this wall art:

Birth Control is so mid-twenties. Image via Stacie Chadwick.

With this wall art:

Image via fanpop.com.

4. Please stop asking if I remembered to do my kegels after each pregnancy. I’m sorry if I’m leaking all over your bifocals, but I haven’t been pregnant for nine years. The answer is no. It’s always been no. It will always be no, and while we’re at it no, I don’t want an inpatient, hook and needle craft kit suture to tighten up the opening to my woman-cave. When it comes to peeing all over yourself on a regular basis you have to think positively. Adult diapers are a lot more form-fitting than the package leads you to believe, and paired with a new set of Spanx, take playing on the slip-and-slide with the kids to a whole new level.

6. Consider exchanging those flimsy paper gowns that barely cover my cheeks and catch the draft of every open door in the building for Snuggies. If you’re interested, Walgreens has an entire landfill’s worth of the 2011 Tim Tebow Broncos version that you can pick up for next to nothing.

A three-month pregnant Le Clown could use a Snuggie to protect his Tori Spellingesque silhouette. Image via clownonfire.wordpress.com

And there you have it. If you, Dr. Feelgood, can find a way for me to kick back with a cocktail in a barcalounger wrapped in the cocoon-like warmth of a Tim Tebow blanket while I gaze up at Johnny Depp and read porn, I’ll come visit once a week instead of once a year. Promise.

Chances are, you’ll never really get the opportunity to answer that question. But it’s still fun to think about.

Really. If Tim Tebow knocked on your door right now, what would you say?

Even though Denver is my town, TT just pulled off the biggest win of his Broncos career, and I’m a fan (I’ll admit it: I’m not a diehard, but I’m not clutching the back of the bandwagon with my last shellacked nail either), I wouldn’t work the football angle. Better minds than mine will debate his passing ability, throwing motion, and unconventional style long after the playoffs are done, and Super Bowl Sunday commercial links fade from your Twitter feed.

Yes, I know a little bit about football. It’s a core class…mandatory…an absolute requirement in our house, because my husband, Scot, is the real deal when it comes to America’s favorite sport. He loves football so much that he has a Colorado Buffalo tattooed on his right calf. It’s full color, life-like, not small, and perfectly centered above his sock line. So that it’s always visible. Like, 24/7. Which is awesome.

Scot decided it would be a great idea to ink himself when he was thirty, sober, and I was out of town for work. Not when he was in college, coming off an all-night bender at the Fiji house in Boulder, and I was nowhere close to being in the picture.

When he finally produced the receipt from the tattoo parlor to convince me that it was real, I cried. But my need to wear an “A” for alpha and the control issues that may or may not present themselves from time to time in our marriage is the subject of a different post.

Anyway, I wouldn’t bring up religion either.

Whether it’s a church, a casino, or a bottle of Jack, we all have our personal Gods and Demons to deal with. Because we’re human, we sometimes blur the line between the two (more often, I think, than we’d like to admit). What serves as any individual’s inspiration, however, is irrelevant. It’s what we do with that inspiration that counts.

In all honesty, if Tim Tebow were to knock on my door right now, I probably wouldn’t answer it. It’s late, I’m propped up on my favorite softie pillow with zit cream on my face, and I’m tired.

But just for arguments sake, let’s say it’s early, I’m in full Kardashian make-up mode, and I just shotgunned a triple espresso latte from Starbuck’s. There is no doubt in my mind that I’d open the door.

So after I invite him in, but before I actually let him walk across the threshold, I would ask one question. One very important, but simple question.

I would ask that he please take off his shoes. I’m a little OCD when it comes to tracking snow all over my house, and I’m positive he has ginormous feet (he has to wear size, like, 48XXXL).

And after I got that Very Important Question out of the way, let him sit in my favorite leather chair, got him a glass of water, peeled Scot off the ceiling, and told the kids to “please stop staring because it’s rude,” I would just say “thank you.”

Thank you for reinforcing that there are truly good people in the world. Not good quarterbacks, messengers, agendas, or brands. Just good people who are kind, simply because that’s what feels right.

Thank you for giving my son a role model to embrace. Someone to look up to in areas that transcend the shelf life of a pro career, and include powerful words like humility, transparency, confidence, and grace.

Thank you for not being perfect on the field, and for not being so imperfect off the field that it’s painful to watch.

Thank you for helping me trust that there are guys out there who are worthy of my girls. Not you, specifically, because they’re each seven and nine years old, and that thought is super creepy. But boys, and someday men like you, who will hold their hands (but not too tightly), get them home safely each night, and listen, really listen, when they speak.

Thank you for knowing who you are, and believing in yourself unconditionally in the face of criticism, ridicule, envy, and poor taste.

And finally, thank you for making me smile over and over, and countless times throughout this season…one that has been more fun to watch than anything I’ve seen in a long time. With every win, you look like a twelve-year old coming off the field after a huge Pop Warner game. With every loss, you wear your heart inside-out on your sleeve, and a thousand emotions alongside.

It’s been my pleasure to meet you. Really. I’m a dreamer by nature, and now? I’m a believer too.